Through the Pages
by Holly-Sama
Summary: -discontinued- Each member of the brotherhood has a special gift besides their mutation but no one ever sees it because they won't look past the cover. no slash.
1. Slowing down

**Authors note: This is going to be a six story set, one for each of the Brotherhood members: Pietro, Lance, Todd, Fred, Tabby, and Wanda. Not necessarily in that order.**

**I have concrete ideas for all of them except Fred's. If anybody has any ideas please let me know.**

**Pretty please review, but any flames will be given to Pyro. (Not that he needs anymore.) **

**Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing! Please don't sue!**

**Slowing Down**

Pietro p.o.v

Everybody outside of the Brotherhood and especially the X-geeks see me only as Pietro, the speed demon who loves to cause trouble and rushes through everything like he can't stop.

But that's not true. I can stop whenever I want too, just most of the time it isn't worth more then a second of my time. I use my super speed on everything. My way of thinking is the sooner I finish whatever I'm doing, the sooner I can move on to something new.

But there is one thing I'll always slow down for. I don't like to rush it because you completely loose the whole feeling if you do. I know this sounds weird but that one thing is painting.

I know it must be really bizarre to think that one of the 'loserhood' actually likes something of the higher society, but it's true.

I always paint at normal human speeds, that way I can easily watch as each stroke; every bit of paint forms the whole. Kinda reminds me of my life.

It started out in a million little fragments. The experiments my father used me for, seeing Wanda thrown in that nuthouse, coming and going out of foster homes before I finally stayed for awhile with the Maximoffs, the things I've done since I came here both good and bad.

Now a few weeks from high school graduation I'm finally starting to pull it together and I think I know where I'm going.

And before you ask, yes we got back into school. Kelly left and when the new principal got there she started going through all the old cases and I don't know how, but she found out about the cheap trick Kelly pulled on Lance and the guys. After a lot of reviewing and discussing the board decided to let us come back.

They even put us in some special classes to help us catch up with the year or so we lost. I've done pretty well in most of my classes but art is without a doubt my favorite subject. Even the kinda odd ones like modern art.

Which leads me back around to where I started.

I didn't really care for any kind of art until I started school again but I sort of liked my class so I kept up with it and took another set of them after that. This taught us how to paint. I've been completely hooked since then.

When I'm working on a painting I can forget about whatever is bothering me. It feels like with every stroke of the brush a little of the trouble goes onto the canvas and disappears.

My favorite things to paint are landscapes. I don't really like painting people.

The great thing about landscapes that's lost with people is that you can pick how wide or confined the picture is. You can show everything within your vision or pick one spot to focus on.

I like to paint snow scenes, and outside after a rain. Sometimes I run to the beach and see what I can find. Actually beach scenes are me favorite.

My walls are covered with my work. I know everybody in this house has at least one. Last year for Christmas I painted a special picture for each of them.

For Lance I made a painting of the park after a snow storm the previous January. It had been a pretty big storm with high winds that sculpted the snow banks into all kinds of cool patterns. I thought it was a good fit because Lance loves the snow. Or more specifically he loves throwing snowballs at people but it's a 'same-difference' thing.

Tabby's is a collection of flowers I saw in a garden on the coast when I was out running on the beach. There are all kinds of flowers in it but the most prominent are blue 'snowballs'. I don't know if that's their real name but that's what Tabby calls'em. They are a ball of small, powder blue, four pedaled flowers about the size of a fist and are her favorite kind of flower.

Todd's is the pond and its surrounding area at the city park right after a rain storm. Everything was wet and gleaming with fresh sun light falling down in streams on it and making it shine like a field full of diamonds. He said as much as he doesn't like water, he loves rain because when it's done everything is fresh and clean.

For Fred I painted a tide pool at the beach, because he loves all of the different kinds of life that can be found there. People never give him enough credit for his intelligent because of his appearance but you'd be hard pressed to name a form of marine life he doesn't know all about. I've lost track of how many hours he's spent in the school library researching it since we got back.

One thing I realized not long after we returned to the school system was that somehow, without notice the unspoken Brotherhood rule that studying was stupid vanished. I didn't try to find it either.

Anyways, last but definitely not least, Wanda's picture. I thought about what to paint for hours until I finally saw it.

I had had a rough day at school once in early October so I decide to run down to the beach. When I got there I could feel that a storm was coming.

I had found a rock outcropping a few weeks before that allowed me an almost complete view of the whole beach so I headed over to see what was up and froze.

There was the storm, suspended completely motionless a few miles from shore, a huge rolling, boiling mass of black clouds interlaced with lightning. And almost more amazing was that the sky ahead of it, between me and it was still crystal clear. The breeze had died in preparation of the coming event so nothing on the beach moved. Except me.

I knew I wouldn't have long to work on it so I started the picture and had the rough outline done before I had to retreat back to Bayville. But by then the image was stored safely in my memory and I could work on it dry and warm at home.

Over time I've come to realize what painting really is to me. It a way for me to see what's in the world itself, without all the messes caused by us, human or mutant.

I see what most people take for granted because their used to it.

And in that I find comfort and a purpose. Safely enfolded in the lines of color is everything I've ever felt, from my pain and anger to the encompassing wonder I found in this new way of seeing the world. And I know it'll stay there, safe and sound for as long as my work exists.


	2. Sound of Life

**Author's note: A couple of points to address. **

**1: This one isn't as long as Pietro's, but I wrote it several weeks ago and wanted to post it really badly but I couldn't find any ideas to make it longer so it's going as is.**

**2: I'm going to write a story in this set for Pyro.**

**3: All of you who reviewed are absolutely wonderful! You have no idea how much hearing for you guys means to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!**

**Please do not flame as I will extinguish them.**

**I own nothing! Please don't sue!!!**

**Sound of Life**

Most people see me coming and go, "Oh, brother! Not Tabitha! That girl is completely crazy!"

But I'm not really. I love things to be wild and fun, but not completely chaotic. In fact I really like it when there's a basic rhythm to the things around me.

The problem is that people have a hard time seeing that side of me because it's almost impossible for me to let it out. I can't just stop dead in my tracks and start acting all calm and collected. I'd probably end up in the X-mansion with the X-team trying to figure out who I was and what I did with Tabitha.

But, I've found a way around that. A way to be wild and creative but still calm and orderly; and that's in music. And not the high energy pop stuff that I normally listen to but in playing classical instruments.

Weird and completely unexpected from me but true as can be. My favorite instrument is the clarinet. I also play the violin and piano but I do my best work with the clarinet.

But no matter what instrument I'm using there's just something about the music that I love. I can feel it vibrating through my instrument and through me. It just connects somewhere inside and I feel calm and very happy.

People say that my own voice, my plasma bombs exploding, and my blaring pop music are my favorite sounds. And while I like all three of those a lot, the soft, mellow sound of my own creation with music is really my favorite.

And it seems that it is shaping my future too.

There was a show at the Bayville convention center, a kind of talent show where young musicians competed for a couple of scholarships to a very prestigious school of the arts in New York City. My music teacher brought it to my attention and I pounced on it.

And I won. I was awarded one of the three scholarships; I start there this fall after I finish high school, so I will be going there instead of a normal collage.

I think it's kind of funny; the crazy, wild Tabitha is going to become a classical musician. Who'd have thought? But then again, after Speedy came clean about his painting addiction we should have all learned that we can't really guess what we have in store for each other and ourselves.


End file.
